Free Republic

I just let an anniversary go by unnoticed. I became a member of Free Republic on November 8, 1999. At that point in my life, I was a sophomore in college. Now, I'm a youngish professional with more than my fair share of grey hair already, and less than 8 months from reaching the "big" three-zero birthday. First, I want to thank Jim Robinson and all those who maintain this wonderfully addictive website. I get most of my news off of here. It is such a clearinghouse for what's going on in there world But more than that, it's a...

Ancient ale Prehistoric yeast takes beer drinkers back millions of yearsBy Suzanne Bohan Contra Costa Times Sep 24, 2009‎ GUERNEVILLE, Calif. - Inside a stainless-steel tank at a brew pub here overlooking the redwood-rimmed Russian River, a 45-million-year-old yeast proves its mettle. And the remarkably resilient prehistoric microbe hasn't just garnered a devoted pack of Fossil Fuels Beer fans, it's also providing palpable proof of the tenacity of life on this planet. When the Australian-born owner of Stumptown Brewery, Peter Hackett, first learned of the ancient yeast, he doubted this long-extinct strain would ferment anything drinkable. It took the urging...

On Wednesday, August 12, a man holding a sign that said “Death to Obamaâ€� at a town hall meeting in Maryland was detained and turned over to the Secret Service for questioning, which is pursuing an investigation into charging him with threatening the president. As well they should. I fully and absolutely agree with this arrest, since anyone who threatens the president is breaking the law and should be prosecuted. It doesn’t matter that Obama was not at the meeting nor that the man was unarmed: the threat all on its own is a federal crime, according to the United...

According to their forecast, the unemployment rate will be at 10 percent through 2011. Three years after that, the jobless rate will have dropped only to 8 percent. And a decade from now, that rate will still be floating above 6 percent. Diane Swonk, an economist with Mesirow Financial, said she tends to agree with such bleak forecasts of jobless recoveries. "This is the exact debate that's going on in economics today," she said. "Because we have a severe recession, will we get a nice bounce? Or are we stuck in a period of slow, muted recovery, particularly in the...

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon presented a grim portrait of the Afghanistan war Thursday, offering no assurances about how long Americans will be fighting there or how many U.S. combat troops it will take to win. Defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida will take "a few years," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, with success on a larger scale in the desperately poor country a much longer proposition. He acknowledged that the Taliban has a firm hold on parts of the country President Barack Obama has called vital to U.S. security.

Obama said in an op-ed posted early Sunday on The Washington Post's Web site that his $787 billion stimulus program was not expected to return the economy to full health, but to provide a boost that would stop the free fall. "So far, it has done that," the president wrote. "It was, from the start, a two-year program, and it will steadily save and create jobs as it ramps up over this summer and fall." He said his stimulus plan must be given time to work and appealed to Americans, who are increasingly uneasy with rising unemployment and ballooning budget...

WASHINGTON, May 19: The US secretary of state acknowledged on Tuesday that Washington had not been consistent in its dealings with Islamabad. Talking to reporters at the Foreign Press Centre and the White House, Hillary Clinton said ‘it is fair to say that our policy towards Pakistan over the last 30 years has been incoherent. I don’t know any other word’

Another day, another outrage from the Obama Administration. OK,how about a little diversion? Who is the posting champ of FreeRepublic? Who has posted the most number of threads? The most number of replies? Who has been here the longest(other than JimRob,of course!)? Check "Account" at the top of the page and let us know.

(IsraelNN.com) IDF soldiers managed to capture hundreds of terror suspects during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. One of them, 20-year-old Mohammed Amazi, was revealed to be one of Hamas' more senior fighters. Parts of Amazi's interrogation were published this week by the Hebrew-language Maariv. Amazi told security forces that he was recruited by Hamas at age 12 as he left a mosque in his hometown of Jabalia. At first his participation in the group consisted only of daily Koran classes, he said. However, at age 13 he was officially sworn in to the terrorist group, and soon began actively supporting...

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama says the nation probably faces huge deficits for years to come, but heavy spending is needed now to spur the economy. .. "Potentially we've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on."

MONTPELIER, Vt. - The nuclear energy watchdog group New England Coalition has been waiting a long time, a very long time, for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to pay attention to its concerns. The agency has just replied to a petition concerning safety and radiation exposure that the coalition filed in 1975. "No petition before its time," said NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner. As if being ignored for three decades weren't enough, the NRC denied the group's petition. The coalition had been urging federal regulators to consider, as part of their environmental review of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, the...

Upright Walking Began 6 Million Years Ago Newswise — A shape comparison of the most complete fossil femur (thigh bone) of one of the earliest known pre-humans, or hominins, with the femora of living apes, modern humans and other fossils, indicates the earliest form of bipedalism occurred at least six million years ago and persisted for at least four million years. William Jungers, Ph.D., of Stony Brook University, and Brian Richmond, Ph.D., of George Washington University, say their finding indicates that the fossil belongs to very early human ancestors, and that upright walking is one of the first human characteristics...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Dozens of gay and lesbian couples entered into civil unions in New Hampshire in the early moments of New Year’s Day as a new state law legalized the partnerships after midnight. Organizers said they checked in 37 couples for an outdoor ceremony on the plaza of the New Hampshire Statehouse—the building where the law was adopted and signed in 2007. Participants bundled up against below- freezing temperatures. “We’ve been together 20 years; we’ve been waiting for this moment for 20 years; finally the state will recognize us as we are,� said Julie Bernier, who posed for...

Top 11 Warmest Years On Record Have All Been In Last 13 Years ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2007) — The decade of 1998-2007 is the warmest on record, according to data sources obtained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global mean surface temperature for 2007 is currently estimated at 0.41°C/0.74°F above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.20°F. The University of East Anglia and the Met Office's Hadley Centre have released preliminary global temperature figures for 2007, which show the top 11 warmest years all occurring in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January...

The moment she spotted the young woman in the puffy silver jacket, Ginger Mayes screamed her daughter's name and rushed the escalator, oblivious of the other passengers streaming into the baggage-claim area at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Zarminah Al-Rabiah stepped off the escalator and into her mother's arms. The women clutched each other in a minutes-long hug, sobbing and then laughing.

A motorist in Helsingborg has been ordered to pay back over a quarter of a million kronor in disability benefits after claiming to be blind for a period of ten years. The person in question was caught driving a car on three separate occasions while at the same time receiving benefits totalling 268,000 kronor ($38,500). The Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) explained its decision to request reimbursement in a letter to the individual concerned: "While investigating your case in the autumn of 2006, we received information suggesting that you cannot be considered sightless.

The Royal Navy has unveiled its largest and most powerful attack submarine, a month before the over-budget, overdue vessel is due be launched. Military officials say HMS Astute will be able to circumnavigate the planet without surfacing, and its nuclear reactor is designed to last for the vessel's 25-year operational life, meaning it will never need to be refueled. An artist's impression of the Astute class submarineInside the Astute class submarine

Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack. 1956 - Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's hunting rifle, goes to his own car and gets his favorite rifle to show Jack. 2006 - School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack is handcuffed and hauled off to Federal prison and never sees his truck, gun or family again. Counselors are called in for all the traumatized students and teachers. FOX, ABC, CBS &NBC are on site within 5 minutes. ++++++++++++++++++++++ Scenario: Best friends Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school. 1956...

Mystery of the Missing Heat: Upper ocean has cooled slightly in recent years, despite warming climate Sid Perkins Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went. According to climate data gathered worldwide, 2003, 2004, and 2005 are three of the five warmest years since reliable record keeping of global air temperatures began more than a century ago. However, oceanographic surveys suggest that on average, the upper 750 meters of the world's ice-free oceans cooled about 0.03°C during that 3-year period. This cooling reverses an oceanic-warming trend observed...

Catastrophic mudslide could last 100 years, say scientists · Land in East Java likely to collapse as thousands flee· Attempts to seal channels will 'probably not succeed' John Aglionby in Jakarta Tuesday September 26, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Smoke rises from the site of the mudslide in East Java. Photograph: Vinai Dithajohn/EPA Mud, gas and boiling water that have been gushing out of the ground in East Java since May, submerging half a dozen villages and 20 factories, could continue for a century with "catastrophic consequences", European experts said yesterday. Efforts to seal the channels through which the mud is...

Seeds 200 years old breathe again By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website The unknown acacia species is now half a metre tall Seeds which have been stored away since the time of George III have been persuaded into new life. Scientists from the Millennium Seed Bank, operated by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, have induced seeds from three species to germinate. They had been brought to Britain from South Africa by a Dutch merchant in 1803, and were found in a notebook stored in the National Archives. Given this history, the team said it was surprised by...

BISBEE — A Mexican man pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges he stole a pickup truck and dragged a Sheriff’s deputy during a March traffic stop in Huachuca City, breaking the deputy’s ankle in the process. Hugo Rodr’guez Pelagio, 24, of Tangancicuaro, Michoacan state, will serve three years in prison and pay up to $200 in restitution as part of a plea agreement with the state. According to an arrest report from the Sheriff’s Department, Rodr’guez Pelagio was stopped at about 2:38 a.m. on March 21 as he was driving with an unidentified passenger along Highway 90 northbound in a...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A convicted murderer who escaped from a Michigan psychiatric facility in 1976 was back behind bars Thursday after living most of his 30 years on the run as an otherwise law-abiding family man in Tennessee, authorities said. Thomas Ball, 76, was arrested at his Nashville home Wednesday morning, Deputy U.S. Marshal Danny Shelton said. Ball had been using the name Thomas Fry and had run a storage business near Nashville for years with a woman he called his wife, Shelton said. After she died last year, he turned to the government for financial help, and that led...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2006 – Five years after military recruiting hit the ceiling after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, recruiting remains solid, with every service meeting its active-duty recruiting goal for the 15th consecutive month. Recruiting and retention statistics for August, just released by the Defense Department, show the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force all meeting or exceeding both their monthly as well as year-to-date recruiting goals for the year. At the same time, retention remains solid across the board, with all services expected to meet their retention goals for the fiscal year, officials said. During August,...

It may well take 20 years. But al-Qaeda's days are numbered Five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden waits in vain for a Muslim 'awakening'. The lure of the West is just too powerful a force Jason Burke Sunday September 10, 2006 The Observer (UK) Tomorrow will mark five years since the attacks of 11 September 2001. If one generation knew where they were when mankind first walked on the moon, another knows where they were when the Twin Towers crumbled. And they know where they were when coalition troops first entered Iraq. And when the bombs exploded in London...

Ky. businessman gets 7 years for bribe to JeffersonBy MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer A Kentucky telecommunications executive who admitted paying more than $400,000 in bribes to Rep. William Jefferson was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison. Vernon Jackson, 54, of Louisville, is a key figure in the federal investigation of Jefferson, D-La., who has not been charged. But in court papers, prosecutors have alleged that they caught Jefferson on videotape taking a $100,000 cash bribe. Most of that money later turned up in a freezer in Jefferson's home. Jefferson was never mentioned by name in Friday's...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2006 -- At about 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Debra Wagner and her colleagues at the Pentagon got a phone call telling them to turn on the television. There had been a terrible “accident” in New York City. Debra Wagner, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, stands by a display honoring the people who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon. Wagner said she came through the tragic events with a profound belief in the resilience of America and its people. Photo by...

LOS ANGELES - Ronald Isley has been sentenced to three years and one month in prison for tax evasion. The 65-year-old R&B singer was also ordered to pay $3.1 million in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Conte. Isley was convicted last year of five counts of tax evasion and one count of willful failure to file a tax return. During Friday's hearing, defense attorney Anthony Alexander argued that Isley should receive probation instead of prison time because of complications from a stroke and a recent bout with kidney cancer. Alexander also pleaded for...

The Drug Policy Alliance is releasing a powerful flash movie that highlights the plight of 18-year-old Mitchell Lawrence, the teen now spending two years in jail for selling one joint’s worth of marijuana to an undercover cop in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The two-minute movie introduces people to Mitchell Lawrence and the details of his case. The flash asks and then explains how an 18-year-old (he was 17 when arrested) who has never been in trouble before could be sentenced to two years in jail for selling such a minuscule amount of marijuana. The movie states: "It takes two things: A...

Start of banana farming in Africa pushed back 2000 years According to recent evidence from Uganda, the banana may have arrived on the African continent more than 4000 years ago, some 2000 years before the accepted introduction of the fruit on the continent. The finding was published in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science (Vol. 33(1):102-113). The authors base their claim on banana phytoliths - distinctive microscopic silica bodies that accumulate in plant cells - which they found in sedimentary layers estimated to be 4000-4500 years old. Earlier findings in Cameroon of 2500 year-old banana phytoliths...

Flood alert for the highest tides in 20 years By David Sapsted (Filed: 07/08/2006) Thousands of people living in coastal areas are being warned to prepare for mass evacuations next month because of floods. Similar conditions in 1953 led to a flood that claimed 300 lives With the highest tides in 20 years predicted during September and October, the Environment Agency is holding road shows to alert people in the most vulnerable, low-lying areas of East Anglia. Householders are being urged to register with the agency to receive direct flood warnings, and a new Precautionary Evacuation Notice (PEN) system, involving...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a government request to deny the release of a top fundraiser for an Islamic charity that authorities say has ties to terrorism, his attorneys said. The move by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came days after a federal district judge ordered the release of Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, 45. Hamdan was to be released Monday evening, said Ranjana Natajaran of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Hamdan has been held at the Terminal Island federal detention facility in San Pedro for more than two...

Clinton says Bush years 'hard on science'By Mark Pratt, Associated Press Writer July 23, 2006 BOSTON --New York Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday that scientific and medical advances in fields including embryonic stem cell research are being held back by a White House that puts ideology and theology ahead of facts and evidence. "The last 5 1/2 years have been hard on science ... and particularly hard because of the president's veto last week," Clinton told 5,000 attendees at the World Transplant Congress in Boston. **SNIP** Clinton, a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2008, said science is being politicized...

When Officer Manuel Gonzalez was stabbed to death Jan. 10, 2005, the inmate suspected in the killing was out of his cell – in violation of standing orders at the prison. Gonzalez, a veteran officer at the California Institution for Men in Chino, also wasn’t wearing his protective "stab-resistant" vest. That’s because it, and hundreds more like it, were in storage and had never been distributed. The killing came a year and a half after prison laundry employee Karen Gossom claims she was sexually assaulted by her supervisor while at work. An Internal Affairs investigation sustained the allegations, and Gossom...

Fruity headache for cafe ownersBy Samantha Williams and Karina Dunger 03jul06 Cafe workers ... Julie Hanssens and Jodie Lee / Troy Bendeich BAD weather is set to affect the price of oranges after already crippling Australia's banana industry. The worst frost in 24 years has destroyed 40,000 tonnes - about 25 per cent - of the citrus fruit produced in southern Australia. "They won't hit skyrocketing prices of bananas but there will be some price hike due to the reduction of fruit on the market," Riverina Citrus CEO Peter Morrish said. Oranges currently sell for $2.50kg, with experts predicting rises...

Early signs of elephant butchers Excavations took place in 2004 Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists. Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears. The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science. The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet,...

TORONTO (CP) - It could take half a century or more for someone infected with prions - the cause of mad cow-like diseases - to start showing symptoms, say researchers, who drew that conclusion after studying a similar illness among Papua New Guinean people who once feasted on their dead. Their findings suggest that the number of human cases of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) could end up being much larger than originally suspected, say the researchers, whose study is published in Friday's edition of The Lancet. With 160 cases, the United Kingdom has the highest number of recorded cases in...

Massive mummy fraud discovered after 2,000 years Maev Kennedy Wednesday June 21, 2006 Not quite what it seems ... Roman period mummy at the Fitzwilliam Museum Modern medical science has exposed the villainy of the crocodile mummy sellers of Hawara, more than 2,000 years after they defied the edict of a Pharaoh and turned neatly bandaged bundles of rubbish into a nice little earner. Before the reopening this month of the Egyptian Galleries at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, curators took their animal and human mummies to the city's Addenbrooke's Hospital, as part of a £1.5m re-display of the internationally...

Front garden yields ancient tools Only one other handaxe of this type has been found that is bigger The Britons of 250,000 years ago were a good deal more sophisticated than they are sometimes given credit for, new archaeological evidence suggests. It comes in the form of giant flint handaxes that have been unearthed at a site at Cuxton in Kent. The tools display exquisite, almost flamboyant, workmanship not associated with this period until now. The axes - one of which measured 307mm (1ft) in length - were dug up from old sand deposits in a front garden. "It is...

WASHINGTON (June 15, 2006) -- Immeasurable heartache seared into Linda Lorenz as she experienced an act no parent wants to endure; burying an only child. Her son, Pfc. Hans J.R. Lorenz, died in 1966 as a result of an accident near Da Nang, Vietnam, making Linda one of the thousands of grieving parents who lost children during the Vietnam War. However, when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 1982, her son’s name wasn’t inscribed on the monument. For 20 years, she fought to have her son’s sacrifice recognized and was denied at every attempt. Her struggle ended happily when...

Basques were fishermen more than 8,000 years ago 06/13/2006 The Basques that settled 8,300 years ago in the Jaizkibel Mountain near the Basque coast were skillful enough to go fishing two kilometres out to sea. The human beings that lived in the Basque Country in the Mesolithic, more than 8,000 years ago, set sail out to sea fishing, something which meant 50 percent of their diet, Aranzadi society of sciences reported Tuesday after examining archaeological remains found in Gipuzkoa. They did not hunt whales, as their descendants many years after, neither tuna nor anchovy as the current Basque fishermen but...

US 'planning to keep 50,000 troops in Iraq for many years' By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 12/06/2006) America plans to retain a garrison of 50,000 troops, one tenth of its entire army, in Iraq for years to come, according to US media reports. The revelation came as George W Bush summoned his top political, military and intelligence aides to a summit on Iraq's future today at the presidential retreat at Camp David. America has indicated that it may raise troop levels in Iraq in the short-term Tomorrow the Americans will talk by video link to Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime...

MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (May 26, 2006) -- Mexican newspapers inadvertently planted a seed in a small boy, born in 1960 in the town of Cananea, Mexico, not far from the Arizona border. “In the newspapers in Mexico, they are more graphic than they are here,” said Guadalupe Denogean, a retired master gunnery sergeant. “I couldn’t read, but I could see the pictures.” So he would ask his brother to read the stories to him, and they were always about the Marines, he said. As that seed sprouted, Denogean, who moved to the U.S. but...

Dutch told to return land they won from the sea By David Rennie in Zaamslag (Filed: 27/05/2006) A photograph of a grinning boy, riding a toy tractor, has pride of place in the kitchen of Aarnout and Magda de Feijter, the owners of a 148-acre farm in the Dutch province of Zeeland. The picture is of their first grandson, Louis, and the de Feijters have always dreamed that he will one day take over the expanse of wind-rippled flax fields that has been in their family since 1835. The de Feijters on the dyke protecting their farm But there are...

London - Iran could be able to produce between 20 and 25 kilos of highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by 2010, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London said Wednesday. 'The IISS estimate of 2010 remains valid,' the institute said in its report The Military Balance 2006 published Wednesday. Other estimates of an Iranian nuclear weapons capacity by 2009, or even 2008, were 'within the margin of error, given the number of unknowns', the report said. It stressed that the limited access of the IAEA nuclear watchdog to Iran's facilities required policymakers 'to rely on worst-case assumptions...

Ancient city reveals life in desert 2,200 years ago (Xinhua) Updated: 2006-05-22 14:58 Chinese and French archaeologists claim to have discovered the ruins of an ancient city which disappeared in the desert in Northwest China more than 2,200 years ago. The ancient city, shaped like a peach, is located in the center of the Taklimakan Desert, the second largest shifting desert in the world, covering a total area of 337,600 square kilometers, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The perimeter of the city walls is 995 meters, with the height ranging from three meters to 11 meters. Archaeologists found traces...

Murals reveal aristocrats' lives 1,500 years ago Some well-preserved murals have been discovered in a tomb of more than 1,500 years old in Datong, North China's Shanxi Province, supplying rich first-hand evidence for the research of early ethnic apparel and rituals. The tomb was identified to belong to a general's mother who died in AD 435. Taking up an area of 24 square metres, it was found in a cemetery of 12 tombs excavated last summer by local archaeologists. Lying on a plateau in the rural suburbs of Datong, the cemetery dates back to the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 386-534)....

War on terrorism will last 20 years, West told By Isambard Wilkinson in Kundi Ghar (Filed: 01/05/2006) "The West cannot expect quick results in the war on terrorism," said a young Pakistani major as he surveyed the restive Afghan province of Paktika from a bunker 10,000ft up in the mountains. "It took 20 years to create this situation and it will take the same to resolve it. The tribesmen here have a medieval mind-set and foreign fighters are entrenched in the community." Pakistani soldiers watch the border with Afghanistan It has been eight years since America first launched cruise missiles...

BANI DA HAR, Iraq (April 26, 2006) -- It was pitch dark when four insurgents were captured in this town of 3,000 nestled along the Euphrates River in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province. With the prisoners secured and on their way to a detention facility; Iraqi soldiers celebrated the achievement with stoic professionalism. They’re proud of the fact more insurgents are off the streets of this small town, and that they captured the bandits without the assistance of the U.S. Marines – which has been an uncommon occurrence in the few years since the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003....

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